Do you need a new website, or does yours just need fixing?

The ten-minute test, on your phone

Not on your laptop. Most people looking for a local business are on a phone, often on mobile data, often standing in a driveway. Open your own site the way they would and time yourself honestly.

1. Time it. Count out loud from the moment you tap the link until you can read something useful. If you get past four or five seconds, that is the first problem, and it is usually the biggest one.
2. Find the phone number without scrolling. If you have to hunt for it, so does everyone else — and a caller who has to hunt is one who goes back to the results and taps the next business.
3. Tap the phone number. Does it actually dial? A number typed as text instead of a link is a startlingly common fault on otherwise decent sites.
4. Read the first sentence. Does it say what you do and where you do it? “Welcome to our website” says neither.
5. Send yourself a message through the contact form. Then check it arrived. Forms break silently, and the failure looks identical to nobody being interested.
6. Check your hours, your services and your prices. Anything on that page that is no longer true is doing active damage.

Score yourself. Six passes and your site is not the problem — go and read the post about the map results instead. Three or four failures and you have a repair list, not a rebuild.

When fixing is the right call

Fix rather than rebuild when the bones are sound. In practice that means:

• It loads reasonably on a phone and is readable without pinching.
• It is on a platform that is still supported and still receiving updates.
• You or somebody you can reach can edit the text without a developer.
• The structure roughly matches your business — a page for each thing you actually want calls about.
• It has been online for years at the same address, and it does appear when you search your business name.

That last one is worth more than it looks. An established address with history behind it is an asset, and replacing a site is the moment that asset is most easily damaged — usually by changing every URL and forgetting to point the old ones at the new ones.

The repairs that tend to be worth doing, roughly in order of return: make it fast on a phone, put the phone number and the form where a thumb lands, rewrite the first screen so it says what you do and where, add a page for each service you want work in, and get the hours, prices and services current. That is usually days of work rather than weeks, and it costs accordingly.

When a rebuild is the right call

Rebuild when the problem is structural rather than cosmetic. The honest triggers:

You cannot change it

No login, no files, or the person who built it has moved on and nobody has the keys. A site you cannot edit will be out of date forever, and that costs more than the rebuild does.

It is not usable on a phone

Not “a bit tight” — genuinely requiring pinch and zoom, or a menu that does not open. That is most of your visitors having a bad time, and it is not a patch.

The platform is finished

Built on something no longer maintained, or so far behind on updates that patching it safely is the same work as starting over.

The business it describes is not the business you run

Different services, different area, different name. Rewriting every page and every URL is a rebuild whatever you call it.

It is a security liability

Years of missed updates, or it has already been defaced or used to send spam. Cleaning that up properly is rarely cheaper than replacing it.

The one that is not on the list: “it looks dated.” Dated is a real cost — it affects whether somebody trusts you enough to call — but on its own it is a design refresh, not a rebuild. Be suspicious of any quote where the whole argument is how it looks.

The arithmetic, done with your numbers

I cannot tell you what a website will earn you, and anyone who puts a number on that is guessing with your money. What you can work out is the break-even, and it is a one-line calculation.

Take your average job — not your best month, your average job — and the margin you keep on it. Divide the quote by that margin. That is how many extra jobs the work has to win before it has paid for itself. For a trade with a four-figure average job, a repair list is usually one job. For a salon with a sixty-dollar ticket, it is a different conversation, and the honest answer might be to fix three things now and revisit in a year.

Do the same sum on the monthly. A monthly fee divided by your margin gives you the jobs per month it has to hold on to. If that number makes you wince, say so out loud to whoever is quoting you — a supplier who cannot have that conversation is not one you want on a recurring invoice.

If you do rebuild, protect what you already have

• Keep the same domain. It is the asset. Everything else is replaceable.
• Redirect every old page to its new equivalent. One at a time, not all of them to the homepage. This is the step most often skipped and the one that costs the most when it is.
• Keep the copy that was working. If a page has been bringing in calls for years, the new version of it should say the same things in the same words, not be rewritten because it was somebody's turn.
• Take a full copy of the old site before it comes down. Pages, images, and anything you have not backed up anywhere else.
• Check the forms on the day of launch, from a phone, on mobile data, and confirm the message arrives.
• Make sure your Google profile points at the new address the same day.

What to ask whoever you are talking to

Ask them to tell you, specifically, what is wrong with the site you have. Not “it is outdated” — which pages, which problems, and what each one is costing you. If the answer is a list you can check yourself, you are talking to somebody honest. If it is a mood, you are talking to somebody who wants the bigger invoice.

Then ask them what they would fix if you only had a quarter of the budget. The answer to that question is the most useful sentence in the whole conversation, and it is the one we would rather give you than a rebuild you do not need. If you want ours, book a callback and tell us the address — we will look at it and tell you which of the two this is.